In a post about the prospect of PayPal parting ways with eBay, commenter Wabewalker shares some insider insight:

No matter what business plan they decide upon, they will have a tough time executing. As an ex-PayPaler, I can tell you that the infrastructure there is stretched to the breaking point, and it doesn’t help that the turnover rate is through the roof (I was quoted 80% in the first year, but I suspect it’s closer to 50%). Someone got the bright idea that the solution was to throw more people at the problem (Brooks’ Law, anyone?) so now nobody is responsible for anything. Portions of the code base are considered too “fragile” to modify, so obvious bugs go unfixed for years. And if you think Twitter has a scaling problem ...

Best line I heard was from an H-1B slave: “I look at the code and I want to cry.”